Help with TPG Decision

Hello,

I first got into coin collecting about 15 years ago, and decided to start with a US Type Coin Collection. I preferred raw coins at the time and spent a year or so buying examples of the types that I was after, with the only criteria being "It looks nice to me". Being that was my only criteria, and based on the fact that I had (and still have) no expertise in determining grade/doctoring/cleaning/etc, I'm sure I ended up with a lot of coins that would come back "Details" if sent them to a TPG.

In the middle of that endeavor, I discovered ancient coins and have been focused on mostly Roman coins ever since. But, lately I've gotten the itch to get back to my US collection, however, this time I want to build it with quality coins in slabs. While some types will obviously take more money depending on how far I want to go, my current goal is to get the best coin that I can of each type that can be had in the $200-$250 range.

Which brings me to the current evaluation that I was hoping you could help me with. If any of the raw coins that I already own would fit the criteria of my new collection, then spending the money to have them graded would be cheaper than buying new ones. The problem is, I have no confidence in my ability to guess specific grade or determine "cleaned" and so forth. So I was wondering if you guys might be able to make guesses and suggest whether these would be worthwhile.

I tried to photograph these coins raw, but I couldn't get the camera to focus on the surfaces very well. When I photographed them while in Air-Tites, the camera focused on the surfaces (and showed more accurate colors), however, also showed all the scratches and dust from the plastic. I provided both sets of pictures in case that helps, if these do not suffice in making an accurate determination than let me know and I'll try again.

First up is this Indian Head Cent. The target for my collection is MS64-65, which falls within my price range. If this one would grade out in that range, then I'd prefer to send it in.... what do you think?


Then there is this 3C Silver. My target with this type is AU58... Think it would get there?


I appreciate you all taking the time to provide feedback. Don't be afraid to hurt my feelings, accurate criticism would make for a good learning experience and would be better than wasting money

I also have a bunch of other candidates that I'd really like to run by everybody. So, if this is something that you don't mind doing, or maybe even enjoy!... Then please let me know.

 

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my experience has been that the less wear on the coin, the less accurate are attempts to grade from photos. With that in mind, I think the IHC could be in your desired grade range. Whether the value of the coin is worth the grading fees is up to you to decide. The trime appears to show a fair amount of mint frost remaining, probably enough for a 55 to 58 grade IMO, assuming nothing else is going on like an old cleaning. Those are nice looking coins and I hope we get to see some more!

 

I'm at 58 from the images. With better images I might call it 62 or 63.

 

@ksparrow , @idhair Thanks for the feedback!

Would you or anybody else have advice for providing higher resolution images?

In the meantime, I'm gonna see if I can take some better photos, and maybe play around with link to cloud storage or something.

 

Your satisfaction is probably guaranteed with the IHC. 2023 Red Book value range MS60 $40-MS63 $65-PF63 $250, is a pretty good return in any of those grades. I'm not sure you would get a high 58 on the three-cent silver. RB value for variety 3, AU50 $175-MS60 $215. It could come in on the lower end. Sending them in for TPG would be a good idea in my opinion. I like them both thanks for sharing and good luck in your decision.

 

I'm not good at grading from photos, and while your photos are excellent, I wouldn't attempt to guess at a grade.
If it were me, I think I'd look for specials and deals on getting them graded and take a chance they come back as you hope. It would add to your confidence in grading.
Another thought, might be to take them into a coin shop and have the owner take a guess at the grade, and maybe make a deal for them to send in your coins with their batch for grading. Just a thought.

 

The 3 cent pc is a bit hard to read ...looka anything from cleaned ms to ms

 

heres my 62/1 in hand i say ms in my photo xf/au ? Its hard to image these...the cent I say high au/low ms

 

Send your top 10-15 coins to ICG/ANACS and see if the grades match more or less your own evaluation. If you‘re only a couple of points off it doesn’t matter, but if you got it completely wrong and your coins are all cleaned/damaged then there‘s no point in submitting to the two big TPGS or in submitting even more coins.

 

I've sent a lot of raw IHCs to PCGS over the past couple of years. It's very hard to grade from one image pair in this case. In the Air-Tite view I'm not sure if there is a mark in the obverse field around 9 o'clock. If there is, my guess would be MS63; otherwise MS64. The coin appears to have original luster so I'm pretty confident it would straight grade. It could get either a RB or RD designation; it's really difficult to determine from these photos.

 

Thanks for all of the advice guys, I'll surely take it into consideration and put it to use!

I spent a solid couple of hours trying to get photos that really show the detail of the surface in focus and true color, but even with all the variations that I tried, couldn't manage to pull it off

Like @ksparrow and @Paddy54 said, maybe it's just not realistic to evaluate high grade coins from photos (at least with normally available equipment). Even if I would have gotten some good ones, I'm afraid that the resolution limits associated with posting them in the forum would have blurred them out again.

Oh well, thanks for trying! I'll snap some pictures of some of the others later tonight or tomorrow just to give you guys an idea about the rest of the coins that I'm thinking considering.

 

As promised, here are a few more coins that I selected out of the batch that I think might have potential. These aren't MS determinations, so maybe they'll be a bit easier.

1806 Half Cent. It's very dark, which isn't obvious in the pictures (it's almost black). There's also the obvious scratches/gouges, but I don't know how these types of things play into grade/details? Interesting though, the photos accurately depict the rotated dies from obv to rev.
I'd be shooting for VF30+ with this type


Flying Eagle Cent. Touch of verdigris just above the tail. I'd be shooting for AU50+ for this one.


Lastly, kind of an oddball. I purchased this 2 cent piece in an NGC MS63 RB holder. I wanted my collection to match (raw), so I cracked it out and have since lost track of the label. In retrospect, bad decisions all around . Anybody think that NGC would be able to (or be willing to bother) make the connection without the label? Would be nice to pay a re-slab fee instead of regrading, plus it would keep the populations accurate.


Thanks again for looking!

 

The 1806 is a large 6 stems variety

I think this has a shot at 40 details. Not saying it won't strait grade.

 

NGC would not reslab if you had the label. Once it is out of the holder it is raw. How could they be sure nothing has happened to the coin?

 

Irregardless of the grades you have a very nice type set going there.

 

Well, I'm probably the one you wanna talk to because I started about the same time you did and you've reached the point I did back around 2012. I had a US Type going in an intercept album that was actually really nice, but somebody got me interested in doing a US Type registry set on NGC. Anybody can do one. It's free to use. It's actually fun taking photos of new acquisitions and replacing the stock photos and just submitting your new coins to the set. Then it gives a price guide value next to it (unless it's a details coin then it doesn't assign any value, although there is value) and it assigns a set amount of points for the coin. Best of all you can view your set online any time, anywhere but there's no identifying info other than your username.
There are many different options for the US type there. The most popular being
"US Type Including moderns" Me and a friend do that one. It entails everything from the 1792 half Disme up to the new womens quarters. Clad and silver versions. All three types of the the 3 cent. All 3 types of the SLQs. But no gold. You may be annoyed by the seemingly endless Liberty seated versions across denoms but you may also like it. I don't know. There are shorter US Type options than this if you choose. This one is one of the few actively evolving options. So if a new dime comes out next year, it will be added to this one. A pre-64 set it would not be, of course. It's your choice.
I'm really satisfied with it. About 140 coins total. I've accepted there's probably 8 to 10 or so I'll never own unless I hit the lottery but the rest are attainable for me.
I'm currently sitting at 67% and ranked 89th out of about 1700, with a few more to be added soon. I can tell you at this point the $200-250 price level is rarely seen for the remainder of this set (that I have left) unless you're buying damaged, slick coins. Some are pretty hard to come by. I actually just sent in a draped bust half cent hoping for a straight grade on it.

I did send some of my original set into get graded. Some I used that were already slabbed and already in my collection. As far as your coins here, you would probably be better off trading some in on already graded examples. The grading fees have gotten really bad for classic coins. It's $10 per form tier. If you have a modern it'll be another $10 for that tier. For classics its $40 a coin as the cheap option. If you want the coin to be attributed, that's another $18 on top and if you want a scratch resistant slab, which I always select because scratches are so annoying, that's another $5 per. Then it's minimum $28 to have 1-10 coins shipped back to you, which is relatively cheap with the insurance this day and age. Don't forget you also paid to get them there. Maybe you can piggy back with somebody else if you can. I can't. You can't afford to send them one at a time. You need to send large batches in to make it worth it if youre going to do it. One or two at a time is just cost prohibitive but if you want to do it you can.

From the pics I think your flying eagle and 2 cent have a shot. I bought a loose 2 cent on ebay and submitted it myself and it came back MS-65RB. One of my best hits. I have that Flying eagle in MS-62 and yours looks as good as mine. The half cent isn't going to make it. I think the differnt colors you see indicate it has been messed with. To find a loose half sent above VG condition that isn't damaged, corroded or cleaned is nearly impossible. For many coppers, you just never know. For MOST coins you never know. When I send stuff, I'd say I can only ever be about 80% sure it will straight grade. I'm 80% sure on the half cent I sent in. To me it looks original but you really have no idea what they will see and what you're missing. If I get a details grade I will often just use the coin anyway because I liked it enough to purchase it. The moderns are much easier and I always try for top pops (70s, 69s). I'd say you've got a 50/50 chance on the 3 cent. Great details but scratches are never good. Sometimes they'll let it pass on a tiny coin but might just depend on the day whether it's cleaning or circulation scratches. The IHC is nice. It probably has a good chance but again, might be worth trading on one that's already graded to save the grading fee.

My goal has just been to try for the nicest option I can afford in each slot. Sometimes I trade stuff in plus cash on some I've reached on. I've done it over many years. It's a challenging set but very interesting to look at. I use four Lighthouse albums for it and place them in the pages in the order they are in, in the registry. So you can page through them and see them just like a normal album even though everything is in slabs. It's just as enjoyable looking at the pics in the registry though for me as I have a pretty decent set up.

PCGS does a registry too but NGC accepts both NGC and PCGS where as PCGS only accepts PCGS. If you want to go that route. It will give your collecting guidance. You don't have to worry about the points unless you want to. And then you can look at other people's sets as well. Many of the top sets have no pics which is a little suspect to me but there are some you can look at that are fantastically done.

Hope this helps.

 

I use a copy stand with four 5000k track light bulbs (so light is directed down and not 360 degrees ) at the corners and will use anywhere from two to four bulb combos depending on the coin. Canon T3i mounted on it with an adustable bellows and either a Schlecter componon-S lens or a Nikon lens I got. The lens that came with the camera just doesnt cut it for coin work. Need the adjustable bellows. I also created a photo box using cardboard and white paper.
I used to use a remote shutter and just judge image quality on camera screen, but then I decided to hook up an old laptop to it which works really well with the Canon software. You can zoom in on a spot and then adjust the lens manually until two numbers in a date are as sharp as your eye can tell on a full size computer screen. Then when you close that window, the full image adjusts to being very sharp. I wish I would have used the laptop method and software from the start. There's a shutter button at the upper right corner of the window to control the camera remotely. Can touch the screen or click it with the mouse to snap pic.

For post editing software I use photoscape. A free option you can download. It's very good and basically a free photoshop. I mainly use it to crop and sometimes auto adjust to reduce noise or take out the yellow hue, but I don't always use that. Depends on the coin. Even with all of this, some coins are extemely difficult to get a good picture of. No light combo and no angle seems to work. Some toning I've found impossible to capture.

 

I would grade the Indian cent MS-64, Red

The Silver Three Cent Piece, AU-55

The 1806 half cent VF-30 sharpness, perhaps cleaned

The 1857 Flying Eagle Cent AU-55

The Two Cent piece MS-64, R&B

If you get the coins graded, get ready to wait a long wait. I submitted three pieces of paper money to PMG at the early January FUN Show and have not received them. I’ve been billed for them and paid it, but it’s been over two months.

 

I probably won't bother with the registry sets, last thing I need is to add a competitive component to my already expensive coin habit .

My primary focus is Roman and Ancient/Medieval British coins. The US collection will be something like a side project. I mostly like to have these coins around because I enjoy showing them to friends and family. They tend to get a kick out of US coins in particular because they are unaware that most of the types had ever even existed. The oddball denominations (2,3,20 Cent, half dimes, etc) are particularly entertaining.

The raw coins do the trick, but I've become a big fan of slabs since then, and I've fallen into the fallacious thinking of "If it's not slabbed then it's not official". Plus, I'd like to put together a more complete set that can be stored in the same fashion as my other coins (slotted cases).

My initial plan is to just get a Seated Liberty of each denomination, ignoring sub-types. After that, I'll probably shoot for getting all of the sub-types in one denomination. It'll probably be quarters, as they contain most of the varieties, are large enough to make them easier to see, and are less expensive than halves!

I've already excluded a number of types from the list that I hope to obtain (everything pre-1800 and other early stuff). Basically, if I can't get a pleasing example graded at least VF for ~$300 or so, then it's not on the list. For now anyway..... You never know, we both might hit the lottery!

This is the conclusion that I'm coming to as well. Whenever I decide to gamble with risky options (sending coins in and crossing my fingers) in an attempt to save money, it usually ends up costing me more in the end.

Problem is, I have to sell these coins. I'm not confident enough in my evaluation abilities to properly describe them to buyers (I don't want to get full price for a cleaned coin), plus I really hate taking a loss on collectables that I've purchased (almost certain to happen, and eliminates dealers as an option).

It did, thanks a lot for the detailed and thoughtful response!

 

I use an iphone and a desk lamp. That probably explains a lot about the quality of my photos!